I Do Not Know the Name of this Town

And I would like to label it just a bad mood,
this feeling of being closed in, trapped by 
failing bone and muscle and a system set
tightly around the rich and healthy. Except 
it is different, this miasma, what my friends  
and I might have called Moodville when we  
were young and hormonal. In those days, I  

could get in my rusting car—no map, and GPS  
was not yet a thing—drive until the landscape    
changed, until I reached unfamiliar cropland,  
thick with Canada geese grazing on seed from  
a bountiful growing season. And when they    
changed direction, they did so in unison, in   
tandem, themselves becoming long necked   
stalks, themselves the field, moving in flocks,
and the mood would pass as I did, eventually
understanding, eventually ready to head home. 

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright May 4, 2024, all rights reserved